how the pendulum swings
by waterlit
Summary: It's hard to tell whether she will accept the noose. Implied Sango/Miroku.


Disclaimer: I own nothing!

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i. how dreams lie

They kiss in a gust of silent tears, and the years flow past back into the future. When the wind dies down, there's an ache in her belly and her bones are stiff with the cold. Miroku's missing; he's not by her side. It's too silent, too dark, and in her heart, she quakes.

But when she closes her eyes, there they are again, on the roundabout, kissing, hugging, loving. He's squatting by the well and she's squatting by the hearth, both absorbed in their duties. Then he walks back into the tiny hut, slides his arm around her swelling middle, and kisses her softly upon her worn cheek.

Hell swallows her visions whole, those fantasies from paradise lost.

There's never a moment now that she doesn't sweep the altar and think of the blood trailing behind Kohaku as he left Naraku's castle, or of the gaping hole in Miroku's hand that never quite disappeared. The sun hangs low in the sky, his crimson blood dripping, and the pendulum swings. it swings – swings, swings, to and fro, up and down and all around.

Then she wakes, with sweat on her brow and blood in her mouth. It's all a nightmare – all a nightmare!

The tide ebbs.

ii. pity is a regrettable dance

When she wakes, she feels like she's drowning, like her head is spinning, and about her, she thinks, all is silent amidst swirling water. This time round, she has a pretty babe at her breast, and Miroku is stalking off to hunt with his bow and arrow.

Her lost child is no longer there; it is a vision, a dream, and she pities herself for not being able to forget. But a woman who has lost everything (friends, family, lover, _child_) has no right to rise from the ashes.

She sinks, and there in her mind's eye she sees Kagome, _beautiful-sweet-kind-girl_, lying in a puddle, dripping with misery. In her eyes, only agony dwells. Sango splashes through the blood; _it's just an illusion_, she tells herself, and finds Inuyasha lying on the table. Sango shrinks, and tries to blink. _Kamikaze_, she thinks, _or maybe not_.

Miroku lines up along the shelf, all decked out in dust and the memory of dark things. His hair is matted and tainted with the whispers of the years. In his hands is a pretty babe, all of a year old, and she wants to reach out for them. But they pass like shrunken shadows, and their eyes are bare.

When she reaches Kohaku, she knows. It's the end – the end – but she says naught. There are whispers in her ears and sorrows in her tears, but she sees him all the same. He is wispy, and his eyes are dead like fishes' scales. She lunges at him and yodels for him to stay, but he blinks and shrugs and slides his way out of her trunk-like arms.

(Good-bye, good-bye, sleep well, sweet dreams)

And then it's all over, and she lies on the sodden floor of her little hut. She's knocked over her candle.

iii. upside-down-world

The flames are not quite bright. They are deadly, licking up the remnants of her life with their serpentine tongues, and they are cruel, wishing her well although she can never quite recover.

She lets the thatched roof burn. It was Miroku's handiwork, that. It's being ravaged, eaten, and dark coils of smoke wind around her head, drifting toward the starless skies. _How terrible the world is,_ she thinks, _how it swallows whole the dreams of its children._

She rolls down the hill, in her darkest nightmares, rolls, until she hits a well. Kagome's well.

_Screechteechleech. _

How painful.

They are hanging at the edge of the world, upon the tallest tower. And they are swinging, to and fro, (oh pretty pendulum) and here she stands, upside down and glances down into their waxen faces.

_Good morning. _

Grass grows

above her head

_Tumblebumblefumble._

Then she's here again, alone with her misery, alone with her pain. She's no saint.

iv. to tell the truth

She rolls the tombstone over, and crawls into the forgotten darkness. Miroku's hiding in here, somewhere. Perhaps, in that darkest corner? But there's nothing there when she shifts the candle in her hand, just a clump of dust, just an echoing whimper.

She's alone in the tomb, and there's not even a rat-eaten, worm-infested body to call her own. Her lover is long dead, and so is the pretty babe that once could have rested upon her hips.

Only, there is a beckoning noose, and it sings to her a sweet lullaby of painless sleep. She weeps.

The truth stings, hard and clear; she's an old woman alone on the cusp of the world.

Maybe she should take the leap.

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A/N: I meant this to be dark and deep, but it's more of a fic where different sentences are thrown together. They don't make much sense, nor is this fic very polished, but I'm tired of editing it already, so here it goes. The rhyming parts aren't very good, are they? Urgh.

Reviews, of course, would be much appreciated (:


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